The old Crown Point Military Road, the location of which, as it starts from the Connecticut River, is about nine miles from Bellows Falls on the farm of the late J. M. Butterfield, is plainly marked beside the Springfield Highway by two substantial markers, erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution chapter.
This road was cut through the wilderness in 1759 and 1760, for the purpose of making it possible for the British army to cross the Green Mountains to Lake Champlain, and thence up the lake on their way to capture Montreal, then held by the French. Williams, in his early history of Vermont, writing of the completion of the road, says: “They made such dispatch as to join the army at Crown Point on the 31st of July, where they embarked with Col. Haviland in bateaux and whaleboats, and sailed up Lake Champlain for Canada. The three divisions of the English forces, under Gen. Amherst, Gen. Murray from Quebec, and Col. Haviland, met near Montreal, which city surrendered without a struggle, and the French power passed away forever from Canada.”
The road was begun in 1759 by Capt. John Stark (later the general who commanded at the battle of Bennington). The section, on the west side of the mountain, was completed that year, and in the spring of 1760, the start was made from the Connecticut River, and the road completed, being an important adjunct to the subjugation of Canada. Col. John Goffe and a regiment of 800 men of the English army did the building of the east end of the road commencing at the Connecticut River.
Based on: The Connecticut River Valley in southern Vermont and New Hampshire: historical sketches, Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, 1929.